So unexpected, in fact, I initially thought it was a hoax. Then I noticed the story was being reported by several sources, some of which looked reputable. Perhaps this wasn’t a viral meme after all. I went to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulatory Authority’s website to get direct confirmation, and sure enough, it was no joke—AHPRA and the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) recently issued a statement saying exactly what was reported.

“The NMBA has become aware that there are a small number of registered nurses, enrolled nurses and midwives who are promoting anti-vaccination statements to patients and the public via social media which contradict the best available scientific evidence. The NMBA is taking this opportunity to make its expectations about providing advice on vaccinations clear to registered nurses, enrolled nurses and midwives.”

“The NMBA expects all registered nurses, enrolled nurses and midwives to use the best available evidence in making practice decisions. This includes providing information to the public about public health issues.”

Vaccination is a pet subject for me—I’m a strong advocate for immunisation and I detest those who would misconstrue the science of vaccines to suit their own twisted agenda. I think there’s a special place in hell set aside for Jenny McCarthy and Andrew Wakefield.

That said, I’m still a teensy bit uneasy about this new approach by AHPRA, because as much as I hate hearing about people mislead by anti-vaxxers, I want to protect freedom of speech.

Muzzling free speech is a two-edged sword. Yes, you might stop slimy crack-pots like Wakefield from spreading their malicious fiction, but you also run the risk of stifling legitimate debate.

There’s no evidence that vaccines have toxic levels of mercury or aluminium, or that vaccines cause autism or cancer. To suggest otherwise is unscientific, and I have no problems in categorically stating that vaccination opponents are currently wrong. But … what if a legitimate concern about a vaccine arises? I’m not suggesting the evidence for vaccination is unsettled, but rather, what if a new vaccine is developed that does have unforeseen complications? Will gag laws prevent a whistle-blower from coming forward for fear of being tarred as “anti-vaccination”? I wouldn’t put it past the developing drug company from using such a tactic if they wanted an easy way to defend their product.

The other aspect to consider is broader—is this the thin end of the wedge? If we start gagging health professionals from speaking out against the consensus on immunisation, then what’s next? Abortion law reform? Euthanasia? Climate change? Each of these issues remains controversial and each side of each issue claims to have science on its side. Should the side with the perceived ‘consensus’ have the authority or the right to suppress debate from their opponents?

Besides, the problem of anti-vaccination propaganda goes way beyond nurses making comments on social media. AHPRA’s power only extends to registered health practitioners in Australia. It doesn’t stop naturopaths or “nutritionists” from promoting anti-vaccination views, and it seems it hasn’t stopped certain chiropractors from subverting the rules either. It doesn’t stop alternative-health hawkers overseas.

Despite my misgivings, I’m still in favour of AHPRA’s move. It’s a step in the right direction, and it’s being done for the right reasons—to protect patients from rogue operators that would betray their trust—although this edict might need further discussion before extending it to all AHPRA health practitioners.

Perhaps we should focus on promoting the truth instead of trying to suppress the lies. For every anti-vaccination blog, there should be a hundred promoting the science behind vaccines. For every anti-vaxxer celebrity that gets thirty seconds of air time, there should be thirty minutes of air time for reputable scientists and vaccination advocates. Anti-vaxxers should be able to say what they want even if it’s pseudoscience, but they should be prepared to be pilloried by real scientists using proven facts.

Perhaps that’s a better way to protect all the rights of the community.

Dr Caroline Leaf is a communication pathologist, world renowned author, public speaker, and self-titled cognitive neuroscientist. Her influence continues to grow. She is regularly invited to speak at some of the world’s largest churches. She spoke at her first TEDx conference in February, and she’s about to host her own conference for the second time. She has more than 120,000 Facebook followers, with many more on Twitter and other social media platforms. And she continues to top the sales charts of Christian best sellers.

She is a self-marketing machine.

But there are cracks appearing. More and more, people are realizing that beneath the facade of her numerous Instagram posts, happy snaps, and the allure of popular success, Dr Leafs teachings on science and the Bible don’t match up with actual science and good theology. While many in the church adorn themselves with her teaching, a growing minority are starting to realise that the Emperor has no clothes.

Almost two years ago to the day, I sat in the congregation of Kings Christian Church on the Gold Coast, and heard Dr Leaf speak live for the first time. What I heard troubled me, and I blogged about my concerns to open a dialogue on Dr Leaf and her teaching. Her husband, Mr Mac Leaf, dismissed my concerns out of hand, which only steeled me to take further action. Now, two years of intense research, dozens of posts and a book later, people are starting to take notice.

Not that Dr Leaf has changed her tune. Her fundamental teaching still relies on the idea that our thoughts control our physical and mental health, and toxic thinking causes disease because our thoughts change our DNA and the expression of our genes through epigenetics. And, if we ‘detox’ our thoughts, we will be restored to the health that God intended. Dr Leaf is also expanding her ministry to the subject of mental health and she plans to release a book on food in early 2016.

Dr Leaf can spruik whatever she likes, but her claims of expertise and her scientific and scriptural legitimacy are crumbling.

This post is a little longer than usual, but I’ve divided it up for easier reading:

Dr Leaf is contradicted by her own qualifications

Dr Leaf is contradicted by science

Dr Leaf is contradicted by scripture

Dr Leaf is contradicted by Dr Leaf

1. Dr Leaf is contradicted by her own qualifications

In her books, on TV, at churches, and in promotional material, Dr Leaf describes herself as a ‘cognitive neuroscientist’.

However, Dr Leaf does not have formal qualifications in neuroscience, has not worked at a university as a neuroscientist, has not worked in any neuroscience research labs, nor has she published any papers in neuroscience journals.

Actually, Dr Leaf is trained as a communication pathologist. A communication pathologist is an allied health professional which seems to be unique to South Africa where Dr Leaf trained. It’s a synthesis of audiology and speech pathology. It qualified her to work as a therapist, which Dr Leaf did for children with traumatic brain injuries. Dr Leaf also researched a narrow band of educational psychology as part of her PhD, and she also worked in a number of schools and for educational boards in South Africa. Dr Leaf hasn’t performed any university based research since her PhD was published in 1997.

In contrast, true cognitive neuroscientists actively carry out research into the biological basis of thoughts and behaviours – either mapping behaviours to certain brain regions using electrical currents from the brain, or with functional brain imaging like fMRI, or stimulating or suppressing the activity of a region of the brain and seeing how a person responds.

Simply having some training in neuroanatomy and psychology doesn’t make you a cognitive neuroscientist. Completing a PhD that involved a model for learning doesn’t make you a cognitive neuroscientist. Reading a lot of books on neuroscience doesn’t make you a neuroscientist either, just like reading the Bible doesn’t automatically make you a Pastor.

So no matter how much Dr Leaf may try to convince us that she’s an expert cognitive neuroscientist, truth be told, she is not.

Of more concern is that Dr Leaf is also trying to position herself as an expert in the fields of mental health and nutrition. But if she can’t get her facts right in an area in which she’s had some training, then it’s unlikely Dr Leaf’s teaching will be reliable in areas that she’s had no formal training or experience whatsoever.

I might add, Dr Leaf’s insistence that she’s a cognitive neuroscientist and an expert on mental health and nutrition is also quite insulting for real psychologists, neuroscientists and nutritionists whose opinions are ignored in favour of a self-titled expert whose only ‘authority’ comes by popular demand, not training or experience.

2. Dr Leaf is contradicted by science

There are so many examples of Dr Leaf being directly contradicted by the science that she claims expertise in that I don’t have room in this blog to outline them all. What I can do in this limited space is to outline Dr Leaf’s most egregious and ironic fallacies as a taster.

The 98 percent

One of Dr Leaf’s most fundamental assertions is that “75 to 98 percent of mental and physical illness comes from ones thought life” [1]. She uses this little factoid all the time to justify her belief in the power of thoughts.

However, her statement is completely wrong. When considered in the historical and global context [2], most of human illness is related to preventable diseases that are so rare in the modern western world because of generations of high quality public health and medical care.

For example, Hunter et al state that, “diarrhoeal disease is the second most common contributor to the disease burden in developing countries (as measured by disability-adjusted life years (DALYs)), and poor-quality drinking water is an important risk factor for diarrhoea.” [3]

De Cock et al write, “Recent estimates of the global incidence of disease suggest that communicable diseases account for approximately 19% of global deaths” and that “2.5 million deaths of children annually (are) from vaccine-preventable diseases.” [4]

Routine screening with the much-maligned pap smear has decreased the death rate from cervical cancer in women by as much as 83% [5]. And having a competent midwife and obstetric support during childbirth can decrease the odds of dying in childbirth from 1 in 6 to less than 1 in 30,000 [6].

Midwives, vaccinations, pap smears, clean drinking water and internal plumbing have nothing to do with our individual thought life. We take all of this for granted in the first-world, so the impact of our thought life becomes artificially inflated. In reality, modern medicine and civil engineering, not our thought life, have everything to do with our good health..

Though what makes this meme such a good example of the weakness of Dr Leaf’s teaching is not just because it’s contradicted by actual science, but in trying to justify her conjecture, Dr Leaf has resorted to twisting, misquoting, and generally fudging information from her ‘sources’ in order to make them support her false conclusions.

For example, Dr Leaf quoted a source on genetics that was over thirty years old, from a time when genetic studies were still in the dark ages. She also misquotes her sources, significantly changing the meaning of the quotes in the process. One source didn’t even mention the figure she attributed to it. As if that’s not bad enough, Dr Leaf also cites biased sources, pseudoscientists, and other sources that directly contradict her assertion [7; Ch 10].

This pattern of relying on mistruths and factoids to paper over the gaping cracks in her irrational assertions is repeated throughout her teaching.

The heart is a mini-brain

Dr Leaf believes that the human heart acts as a mini-brain. She states that the heart has its own thought functions, is an electrophysiological regulator of every cell in the body, and is the source of the human conscience.

Such an assertion is ludicrous, and science proves it to be so – the “still small voice” comes from our brains [8-10], and everyday office-based medical tests prove that the electromagnetic signal from the heart is too small to have any meaningful influence on our body’s cells, let alone our thinking [7: Ch 11].

You control your DNA with your thoughts

Dr Leaf believes that our thinking can influence our DNA. She said this in her 2013 book [1: p35], and several times on her social media streams. The problem for Dr Leaf is that there is no credible scientific evidence that DNA is controlled by thoughts.

Her main evidence comes from a poster presentation at a 1993 psychotronics conference titled, “Local and nonlocal effects of coherent heart frequencies on conformational changes of DNA” [11]. She describes this paper as, “An ingenuous experiment set up by the HeartMath Foundation (which) determined that genuine positive emotion, as reflected by a measure called ‘heart rate variability’, directed with intentionality towards someone actually changed the way the double helix DNA strand coils and uncoils. And this goes for both positive and negative emotions and intentions.” [1: p111]

Actually, the experiment was based on faulty assumptions, and so full of flaws in the methodology and analysis, that it could show nothing at all [7: Ch 13]. All it could prove was that Dr Leaf was so desperate to grasp hold of anything that seemed to support her theory that she was willing to use a twenty-year-old study from a group of pseudoscientists that also believe in occult practices like ESP and telekinesis (http://psychotronics.org).

On and on, the same pattern continues. She claims that our thoughts are powerful enough to control our DNA and our brain, except that the opposite is true – it’s our DNA code, with some influence from our environment, that creates our pattern of neurons responsible for our stream of thoughts. She teaches that thoughts cause stress, when again, the evidence is the opposite – psychological stress starts as a subconscious process which changes our stream of thoughts. Dr Leaf teaches that in order to improve our mental and physical health, we need to fight any ‘negative’ or ‘toxic’ thoughts, when studies show that cognitive therapy isn’t effective when compared to behavioural activation. (This is explained in more detail, and with the appropriate references, in my book [7]).

Dr Leaf even goes so far as to say that our thoughts can control physical matter! [1: p33,38]

Over and over again, Dr Leaf’s teaching conflicts with modern science. That Dr Leaf also regularly misquotes her sources and relies on unpublished opinion from pseudoscientists and new-age practitioners also brings her reputation as an expert scientist into disrepute.

3. Dr Leaf is contradicted by scripture

In her books and on social media, Dr Leaf often quotes scripture in an attempt to reinforce her reputation as some form of Biblical expert. Everything’s fine when she simply quotes scripture, but problems arise when she tries to interpret it. Like her use of science, Dr Leaf often misquotes or paraphrases scripture, or uses it out of context, in order to try and Biblically justify her tenuous hypotheses.

2 Timothy 1:7

One of Dr Leaf’s favourites is 2 Timothy 1:7: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” Dr Leaf interprets the phrases of “spirit of fear” and “a sound mind” as “anxiety” and “mental wholeness” respectively. For example, on the 12th of May 2014, she posted to her social media feeds, “Your mind is all-powerful. Your brain simply captures what your mind dictates. 2 Timothy 1:7” And in her book “Switch on your brain” [1], she said on page 33, “For now, rest in the assurance that what God has empowered you to do with your mind is more powerful and effective than any medication, any threat, any sickness, or any neurological challenge. The scripture is clear on this: You do not have a spirit of fear but of love, power and a sound mind (2 Tim 1:7).”

Simply checking the verse in its full context, and in a different translation, shows it in a completely different light to the way Dr Leaf promotes it. From the NIV, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God.” (2 Timothy 1:5-8)

The Greek word for “fear” in this scripture refers to “timidity, fearfulness, cowardice”, not to anxiety or terror. The Greek word that was translated “of a sound mind” refers to “self-control, moderation”, not to mental wholeness. So Paul is teaching Timothy that God doesn’t make him timid, but full of power, love and self-control. Paul is simply saying that through the Holy Spirit, we have all the tools: power, love and the control to use them, so we don’t have to be afraid.

This scripture has nothing to do with our mental health. It certainly doesn’t say that our minds are “more powerful and effective than any medication, any threat, any sickness, or any neurological challenge”. Dr Leaf’s use of this scripture is misleading.

Proverbs 23:7

Another favourite of Dr Leaf’s is Proverbs 23:7, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he”.

She used this scripture a number of times on her social media feeds, including on the 4/2/2015, “‘The more you believe in your own ability to succeed, the more likely it is that you will. Shawn Achor’ – ‘For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he …’ Proverbs 23:7”, and the 29/5/2015, “Mind In Action: ‘Genes cannot turn themselves on or off. In more scientific terms, genes are not ‘self-emergent’. Something in the environment has to trigger gene activity.’ Dr Bruce Lipton’ – That ‘something’ is your thoughts! Read Proverbs 23:7”. Dr Leaf also used the same scripture to try and explain how the woman with the issue of blood managed to obtain her healing [1: p111].

What’s interesting is how Dr Leaf only ever uses the first half of this verse. The whole verse (in the King James Version) reads, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.”

So what’s with the second half of the verse? What’s the eating and drinking half of the verse got to do with our thought life?

The explanation is that this verse has nothing to do with our thought life at all. Dr Leaf has simply been misquoting it for years, and no one checked to see if she’s right. According to the Pulpit commentary found on the Bible Hub website, “The verb here used is שָׁעַר (shaar), ‘to estimate … to calculate’, and the clause is best rendered, ‘For as one that calculates with himself, so is he’. The meaning is that this niggardly host watches every morsel which his guest eats, and grudges what he appears to offer so liberally … He professes to make you welcome, and with seeming cordiality invites you to partake of the food upon his table. But his heart is not with thee. He is not glad to see you enjoy yourself, and his pressing invitation is empty verbiage with no heart in it.” (http://goo.gl/nvSYUh)

Thus, the scripture does not prove that our thoughts define us as Dr Leaf would suggest. Dr Leaf’s use of this scripture is misleading.

James 1:21

Another example, on the 26 May 2014 on her social media feeds, Dr Leaf said, “James 1:21 How you react to events and circumstances of your life is based upon your perceptions” and then a week later, “James 1:21 Our thoughts and perceptions have a direct and overwhelmingly significant effect of the cells of our body” (4/6/2014).

Except that James 1:21 actually says, “Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls”, and has absolutely nothing to do with our perceptions and our cellular biology.

The same pattern is repeated on social media and in her books. Dr Leaf finds scriptures where one version mentions words like “thinking” or “choice”, isolates them from their context and reinterprets them to suit her meaning, rather the actual meaning of the verse in the original language and the original context.

4. Dr Leaf is contradicted by Dr Leaf

Not only is Dr Leaf’s teaching contrary to science and scripture, but even her own teaching contradicts itself. Dr Leaf also makes claims about her research and achievements that aren’t backed up by her published papers.

To gift or not to gift …

In her 2009 book, “The gift in you” [12], Dr Leaf teaches about the gifts that we have, specifically, our gifts are something uniquely hardwired into our brain, something that we cannot change even if we wanted to, and that it’s our brain structure that gives rise to the way in which we think, the actions that we take, and the gifts we are given from God.

On page 47, Dr Leaf said,

“The mind is what the brain does, and we see the uniqueness of each mind through our gifts. This, in itself is delightful and, intriguing because, as you work out your gift and find out who you are, you will be developing your soul and spirit.” (Emphasis added)

This quote in and of itself isn’t actually that significant until we compare it to a quote from the first chapter of Dr Leaf’s 2013 book, “Switch on your brain.” [1]

“The first argument proposes that thoughts come from your brain as though your brain is generating all aspects of your mental experience. People who hold this view are called materialists. They believe that it is the chemicals and neurons that create the mind and that relationships between your thoughts and what you do can just be ignored.
So essentially, their perspective is that the brain creates what you are doing and what you are thinking. The mind is what the brain does, they believe, and the ramifications are significant. Take for example, the treatment of depression. In this reductionist view, depression is a chemical imbalance problem of a machinelike brain; therefore, the treatment is to add in the missing chemicals.This view is biblically and scientifically incorrect.” [1: p31-32] (Emphasis added)

So … our gifts are hardwired into our brain and can’t be changed because our mind is what our brain does OR our brain is what our mind does, so our gifts aren’t uniquely hardwired into our brain, and we should be able to change our gifting if we want to, based on our choices. Which is it? It can’t be both. Dr Leaf’s fundamental philosophies are mutually exclusive.

Now, we all make innocent mistakes. No one is perfectly congruent in everything they say. But this isn’t just getting some minor facts wrong. These statements form the foundation for Dr Leaf’s major works, and are in print in two best selling books, from which she has used to present countless sermons and seminars around the globe.

To summarise, Dr Leaf has directly called her own beliefs and teaching “biblically and scientifically incorrect”, and not noticed. The confusion and embarrassment are palpable.

But wait, there’s more.

(Not) Making a Difference

From the pulpit, in her books, and in her promotional material, Dr Leaf refers to her ground-breaking research – how her “Switch On Your Brain 5 Step Learning Process” and the Geodesic Information Processing model (which underpins her program), have helped thousands of children to increase their learning and improve their academic results.

For example, Dr Leaf claims that, “The Switch On Your Brain with the 5-Step Learning Process® was assessed in a group of charter schools in the Dallas [sic]. The results showed that the students’ thinking, understanding and knowledge improved across the board. It was concluded that The Switch On Your Brain with the 5-Step Learning Process® positively changed the way the students and teachers thought and approached learning.” (http://drleaf.com/about/dr-leafs-research/ – Original emphasis)

In her TEDx talk, Dr Leaf stated, “I wasn’t sure if this was going to have the same impact cause until this point I’d been working one on one. Well I’m happy to tell you that we had the same kind of results … The minute that the teachers actually started applying the techniques, we altered the trend significantly.” and,
“I stand up here saying this with conviction because I have seen this over and over and over in so many different circumstances … in this country I worked in Dallas for three years in charter schools, and we found the same thing happening.” [13]

Though there is the minor problem of her research results not demonstrating any actual change.

In Dr Leaf’s first case, Dr Leaf herself admitted that the demonstrated improvement of her single patient was just as likely to be related to spontaneous improvement, and not Dr Leaf’s intervention. In Dr Leaf’s PhD thesis, the students improved almost as much in the year without Dr Leafs intervention as they did with her program. In the Dallas charter schools study, Dr Leaf’s intervention either disadvantaged the students or showed no significant difference. In academic circles, Dr Leaf’s research hasn’t so much as generated a stale whimper [14].

So while Dr Leaf may claim that her research has changed the learning and lives of thousands of students all over the world, but her own published research disputes her claims.

The Emperor has no clothes, but no one wants to say anything

In Hans Christian Andersen’s legendary tale, the Emperor was conned by two swindlers into believing that “they were weavers, and they said they could weave the most magnificent fabrics imaginable. Not only were their colors and patterns uncommonly fine, but clothes made of this cloth had a wonderful way of becoming invisible to anyone who was unfit for his office, or who was unusually stupid.”

If you don’t know the story, you can read it here. In the end, the Emperor was duped so badly that he paraded in front of all his subjects au naturel, but “Nobody would confess that he couldn’t see anything, for that would prove him either unfit for his position, or a fool. No costume the Emperor had worn before was ever such a complete success.”

My analogy here is not to suggest that Dr Leaf is deliberately conning the church. Rather, our natural instinct is to suppress our own judgement, even when it’s right, in favour of everyone else’s. We assume information to be true because others in authority tell us it is. We assume that the Emperor must be wearing something because the trusted ministers and noblemen are holding his imaginary train high in the air.

Likewise, it’s very natural for Christians to believe that Dr Leaf’s teaching must be ok because our pastors and leaders vouch for it. Our pastors and leaders vouch for Dr Leaf’s teaching because it’s been endorsed by world-renowned Christian leaders like Kenneth Copeland and Joyce Meyer. And no one wants to say anything, because they don’t want to look sheepish (or be ostracised). Dr Leaf’s ministry may look like a complete success, but only until someone finally says, “But, the Emperor has no clothes …”

It’s time to call Dr Leaf’s ministry for what it is. In my humble opinion, I suggest that Dr Leaf’s ministry is not based on scientific acumen, but on popularity and reputation. And her reputation, in turn, is based on slick self-promotion and an availability cascade (a self-reinforcing process by which an idea gains plausibility through repetition).

Dr Leaf’s teachings are not supported by science, nor by scripture. Her own fundamental philosophies contradict each other. Her assertions about her title and the results of her work are in conflict with her own official data.

Our church leaders need to come clean about why they publicly endorse Dr Leaf’s ministry. I can justify why I think Dr Leaf should not be preaching from our pulpits – in this and many other blog posts, and in my 68,000 word rebuttal to Dr Leaf’s published works. Can Kenneth Copeland and Joyce Meyer, or churches such as Cottonwood Church or Hillsong Church, produce evidence where they performed due diligence on Dr Leaf’s scientific credibility before endorsing her ministry? I would be happy to publish any responses they may be willing to make, complete and unabridged.

If Dr Leaf is preaching at your church, politely ask your pastor to produce his or her evidence that Dr Leaf’s teaching is scientifically and scripturally sound. If your church leaders can’t show that Dr Leaf’s teachings are scientifically and scripturally accurate, then politely ask them why she’s been invited to preach from their pulpit or to sell her wares in your church? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments section.

Critics and sceptics love to use any opportunity they can to embarrass the church, but by parading our own naivety, we’re simply embarrassing ourselves.

It’s time we dressed ourselves in God’s glory, not our own ignorance and ignominy.

One of my Facebook friends messaged me a link the other day. It was to an article that had been popping up on his Facebook feed, originally published by Health Impact News (http://goo.gl/V3A5Mb).

The article is a report by John P. Thomas, building on the previous work of Andrew Moulden. Moulden failed his medical residency in Canada (http://goo.gl/BBKG5z), but used his doctorate in psychology to promote himself as a doctor.

Moulden believed that “Multiple factors can work together to trigger a single type of reaction in the body, which can then produce various sets of symptoms. Even though there were different sets of symptoms and different disease names given to each one, they were actually all part of a spectrum of diseases that he called Moulden Anoxia Spectrum Syndromes. Learning disabilities, autism, Alzheimer’s, irritable bowel disease, Crohn’s disease, colitis, food allergies, shaken baby syndrome, sudden infant death, idiopathic seizure disorders, Gulf War syndrome, Gardasil adverse reactions, schizophrenia, Tourette’s syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, expressive aphasia, impaired speech skills, attention deficit disorders, silent ischemic strokes, blood clots, idiopathic thrombocytopenia purpura, Parkinson’s disease, and other modern neurodevelopmental disorders are closely related in many ways, and are part of a larger syndrome.” (http://goo.gl/kTNRMV)

Moulden Anoxia Spectrum Syndromes isn’t found in any medical textbook, and there is no evidence that Autism, Alzheimer’s, Gulf War Syndrome, food allergies and Shaken Baby Syndrome are at all causally related.

Besides, the term ‘anoxia’ is a medical term meaning ‘without oxygen’. Moulden is obviously suggesting that every one of those disparate conditions is fundamentally caused by a lack of oxygen to somewhere, and while his logic has many flaws, this is the fatal one. Food allergies are not related to lack of oxygen. Neither are reactions to the Gardasil vaccine. And we know that Autism is defined by structural and functional changes in the brain that occur in the womb, and can be detected as early as a month after birth [1]. Autism is primarily genetic – autistic brains have excess numbers of dysfunctional nerve cells that are unable to form the correct synaptic scaffolding, leaving a brain that’s large [2, 3], but out-of-sync. There is nothing about autism that’s related to low oxygen. ADHD is similarly genetic and neurodevelopmental in origin [4]. The only thing suffering from lack of oxygen is Moulden’s theories.

Thomas then tries to extend this already tenuous medical hypothesis by claiming that vaccines cause damage to capillaries in ‘watershed’ areas which, according to his definition (not the medical definition), are “very small areas of tissue (groups of cells) that are served by a single blood vessel called a capillary” (http://goo.gl/4IlUI7) He suggests that certain cranial nerves are vulnerable to these ‘watershed’ injuries, which then result in changes in the way the face moves.

The cause for these ‘watershed’ injuries? “The blood is being sludged up in multiple areas of the body, which is causing ischemia, damage to tissue, functional disorders, and disease. This is not genetic. It is acquired. The drop in the corner of the mouth is the result of low zeta potential and the MASS process. People with autism spectrum disorders, neurodevelopmental disorders, ADHD, and those who are having adverse effects from vaccines such as hepatitis, flu, anthrax, Gardasil, DPT, MMR, etc. are having a generic response. The body is reacting to having foreign matter put into it.”

In other words, he’s suggesting that vaccinations essentially cause strokes.

From here, the article becomes a bamboozling cacophony of legitimate but irrelevant facts, diagrams, factoids, and recommendations. For example, Thomas explains the signs of damage to the third, fourth, sixth and seventh cranial nerves, and cites the damage by actual strokes as examples. Well, that’s fine, except that real strokes don’t involve damage to capillaries, but blockage of arteries, and have nothing to do with vaccination.

He also makes statements that are simply wrong, like “The seventh cranial nerve primarily controls the lower half of the face” (actually the seventh cranial nerve, also called the facial nerve, controls the muscles of the whole face – http://goo.gl/m9S7Gd). And, “When we see seventh cranial nerve damage, we can be sure that the damage is not isolated to the seventh cranial nerve – the damage is happening everywhere” (except in Bells Palsy … and some parotid tumours … and some strokes … and lots of other things).

He also makes the ridiculous claim that autism causes facial droop without explaining why, suggests that weakness of the muscles of the eyes controlled by the sixth cranial nerve is often the first sign of vaccine damage, and that ‘watershed’ damage to the brainstem from vaccination is the cause of SIDS.

Thomas then attempts to justify his conjecture by describing the case of a single baby boy whom he claims died from sudden infant death post vaccination – “His family and his physicians watched him slowly die while the respirator did his breathing for him. Basically they were watching his brain as he went through the stages of sudden infant death after vaccine exposure”. Except that death after nineteen days is not ‘sudden’, and the description of this child’s tragic death is nothing like SIDS. And his only reference to this case? Not an official forensic report, but a ‘report’ written by Andrew Moulden, which was simply an offensive and detestable attempt to leverage the heart-wrenching death of a fifteen month old boy to push his idealistic agenda (http://goo.gl/ysoCtQ).

I could go on. There are pages of material that simply defy rational thinking. He even goes on to question germ theory, and states that “Vaccines are one of the largest triggers of excessive non-specific immune hyperstimulation, which ultimately leads to blood sludging, clotting, and loss of negative zeta. The combined effect of all these factors produce illness, disability, and death.”

There is no credible medical evidence to back up any of Thomas’s claims, nor the claims of Moulden before him. Together, they openly defy centuries of scientific knowledge, modern science, and the observations of every parent whose children have been vaccinated.

Lets face it – if vaccines really caused mini-strokes, we wouldn’t need the dubious work of Moulden and his disciples to discover it. We would have all seen it.

There are a lot of very questionable theories that get promoted on the internet as valid science. Don’t fall for it. There’s no evidence for Moulden Anoxia Spectrum Syndromes, and the only connection between conditions like Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Shaken Baby Syndrome and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is not vaccination, but the pathetic attempt to try and connect them by pseudoscientists with an idealistic barrow to push.

[4] Cortese S. The neurobiology and genetics of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): what every clinician should know. European journal of paediatric neurology : EJPN : official journal of the European Paediatric Neurology Society 2012 Sep;16(5):422-33.

“We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present.” Adlai E. Stevenson

I always thought history was boring, and I must admit, If you want to put me to sleep, start reading early Australian history to me. “Convicts … first fleet … zzzzzz.”

But as Stevenson wrote, the key to the future is the past. With autism, I don’t want to see a future as checkered as its past. In this series of essays, I want to help our community see a future in which autism is recognised and appreciated for its strengths. To properly lay the groundwork, I want to look at the history of autism. This will help provide context for the current understanding of autism, which will then give a framework for understanding the autistic person, and for a glimpse into the future as new research unfolds.

The autistic spectrum has been present for as long as humans have. But to our knowledge, one of the first specific descriptions of someone who met the characteristics of the autistic spectrum was in the mid 1700’s. In 1747, Hugh Blair was brought before a local court to defend his mental capacity to contract a marriage. Blair’s younger brother successfully had the marriage annulled to gain Blair’s share of inheritance. The recorded testimony describes Blair as having the classic characteristics of autism, although the court described him at the time as lacking common sense and being afflicted with a “silent madness”.[1]

Isolated case reports appeared sporadically in medical journals. John Haslam reported a case in 1809, although with modern interpretation, the child probably had post-encephalitis brain damage rather than true autism. Henry Maudsley described a case of a 13 year old boy with Aspergers traits in 1879. There were no other reports of children with autism in the early literature, although at the turn of the 19th century, Jean Itard reported on the case of an abandoned child found roaming in the woods like a wild animal. This child, called Victor, displayed many features of autism, although he may have simply had a speech disorder. Either diagnosis was obscured by the effects of severe social isolation.[1]

Others described syndromes which shared autistic features, but without describing autism itself. The names given to each syndrome reveals how autistic features were regarded in the 19th century: Dementia Infantalis, Dementia Praecocissima, Primitive Catatonia of Idiocy.[1]

Around 1910, Eugen Bleuger was a Swiss psychiatrist who was researching schizophrenic adults (and as an aside, Bleuger was the person to first use the term ‘schizophrenia’). Bleuger used the term ‘autismus’ to refer to a particular sub group of patients with schizophrenia, from the Greek word “autos,” meaning “self”, describing a person removed from social interaction, hence, “an isolated self.”[2]

But it wasn’t until the 1940’s that the modern account of autism was articulated, when two psychiatrists in different parts of the world first documented a handful of cases. Leo Kanner documented eleven children who, while having variable presentations, all shared the same pattern of an inability to relate to people, a failure to develop speech or an abnormal use of language, strange responses to objects and events, excellent rote memory, and an obsession with repetition and sameness[3].

Kanner thought that the condition, which he labelled ‘infantile autism’, was a psychosis[1] – in the same family of disorders as schizophrenia, although separate to schizophrenia itself[2]. He also observed a cold, distant or anti-social nature of the parents relationship towards the child or the other parent. He thought this may have contributed (although he added that the traits of the condition were seen in very early development, before the parents relationship had time to make an impact)[3]. True to the influence of Freud on early 20th century psychiatry, Kanner said of the repetitive or stereotyped movements of autistic children, “These actions and the accompanying ecstatic fervor strongly indicate the presence of masturbatory orgastic gratification.”[3]

Despite the otherwise reserved, cautious discussion of possible causes of this disorder, the link with schizophrenia and “refrigerator mothers” took hold in professional and lay communities alike. In the 1960s and 70s, treatments for autism focused on medications such as LSD, electric shock, and behavioral change techniques involving pain and punishment. During the 1980s and 90s, the role of behavioral therapy and the use of highly controlled learning environments emerged as the primary treatments for many forms of autism and related conditions.[2]

Unbeknown to Kanner, at the same time as his theory of ‘infantile autism’ was published in an English-language journal, a German paediatrician called Hans Asperger published a descriptive paper of four boys in a German language journal. They all shared similar characteristics to the descriptions of Kanner’s children, but were functioning at a higher level. They shared some aggression, a high pitched voice, adult-like choice of words, clumsiness, irritated response to affection, vacant gaze, verbal oddities, prodigious ability with arithmetic and abrupt mood swings. Asperger was the first to propose that these traits were the extreme variant of male intelligence[4].

But the full impact of Asperger wasn’t felt until 1981, when British psychiatrist Lorna Wing translated Aspergers original paper into English. By this time, autism had become a disorder of its own according to the DSM-III, the gold-standard reference of psychiatric diagnosis, but it was still largely defined by the trait of profound deficit. Aspergers description of a ‘high-functioning’ form of autism resonated amongst the autism community, and a diagnosis of Aspergers Syndrome became formally recognised in the early 1990’s with the publication of the DSM-IV.

The most recent history of autism comes in two parts. The first was the revision of the DSM-IV. For the first time, rather than two separate diagnoses, Autism and Aspergers have been linked together as a spectrum and collectively known as the Autism Spectrum Disorders (although autism self-advocates prefer the term ‘conditions’ to ‘disorders’).

The second part is a highly controversial chapter that will stain the history of autism research and scientific confidence, into the next few decades. Chris Mooney, in a piece for Discover Magazine, sums it up nicely:

“The decade long vaccine-autism saga began in 1998, when British gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues published evidence in The Lancet suggesting they had tracked down a shocking cause of autism. Examining the digestive tracts of 12 children with behavioral disorders, nine of them autistic, the researchers found intestinal inflammation, which they pinned on the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine. Wakefield had a specific theory of how the MMR shot could trigger autism: The upset intestines, he conjectured, let toxins loose in the bloodstream, which then traveled to the brain. The vaccine was, in this view, effectively a poison.”[5]

Inflamed by a post-modern distrust of science and a faded memory of what wild-type infectious diseases did to children, the findings swept through the internet and social media and lead to a fall in vaccination rates (from about 95% to below 80% at its lowest)[6].

But the wise words, “Be sure your sins will find you out”, still hold true, even in modern science. In 2010, Wakefield was found guilty of Serious Professional Misconduct by the British General Medical Council, and was struck off the register of medical practitioners in the UK. In the longest ever hearing into such allegations, the GMC considered his conduct surrounding the research project, the medical treatment of his child subjects, and his failure to disclose his various conflicts of interest to be dishonest and professionally and clinically unethical[7]. There is evidence that he also selectively chose his subjects to confound the results, misrepresented the time course of their symptoms related to the vaccinations, misrepresented their diagnosis of autism, and altered the reports of their bowel tests[8, 9].

For the record, this isn’t a comment on the science of Wakefield’s rise and fall, but the history. I am not suggesting that the proposed autism/vaccination link should be discounted solely on the basis of Wakefield’s scientific fraud. Rigorous science has already done that. The science for and against the proposed link between autism and vaccinations deserves special attention, and will be discussed in a future post. Rather, lessons need to be learned from what is one of the most destructive cons in the recent history of medicine.

The losers of this hoax are twofold. Thousands of children have unnecessarily suffered from preventable infectious disease because of a fear of vaccines that has turned out to be unfounded, and those who actually have autism miss out on actual funding because it was syphoned off into Wakefield’s pockets and into research disproving his rancid theory. As the editorial in the BMJ stated, “But perhaps as important as the scare’s effect on infectious disease is the energy, emotion, and money that have been diverted away from efforts to understand the real causes of autism and how to help children and families who live with it.”[6]

As with all good history, there are lessons for the future. Autism is still largely misunderstood. The vacuum of definitive scientific knowledge is slowly being filled, gradually empowering people with autism and the people that interact with them to truly understand and communicate. Each breakthrough and revision of the diagnosis has lead to more sophisticated and more humane ways of living with autism. But there is still a need for caution – people will use the gaps in knowledge and the pervasive distress that can come from the diagnosis, to manipulate and exploit for their own ends.

I’ll continue with the series in the next week or so, looking at the modern “epidemic” of autism.

What do you think of when you think about autism? Is it a TV character like Jake, from Kiefer Sutherland’s recent series ‘Touch’, or perhaps Sheldon from ‘The Big Bang Theory’? Or is it a movie character like the savant that Dustin Hoffman played in ‘Rain Man’? They are common stereotypes, but they only depict a tiny fraction of the autism that is all around us every day. Chances are, you would run into people every day who have autism. Would you be able to pick them?

The current point prevalence rate of autism is given by various international health bodies including the World Health Organization, as one person in a hundred. With a prevalence of one percent of the population as having autism, you would think it would be better known, better dealt with by teachers, better handled by public officials, better screened and managed by health workers, and better resourced in terms of assistance to families and in terms of research dollars.

But while funding and recognition are important, the greatest impact that the lack of autism awareness has is the human cost. It is the cost that can’t be measured in terms of dollars, caused by the maligned stigma that having autism brings.

Autism at the less severe end, what used to be called ‘high functioning’ autism, or what I prefer to classify as (the now unofficial diagnosis of) Aspergers Syndrome, doesn’t make a person look that much different on the outside. But it makes their behaviour somewhat odd to everyone else. They have quirks. They have strange mannerisms. They have rigid ways of doing things. They have very narrow interests. They misread social cues.

“Normal” people don’t like odd. Especially children. If you don’t fit in to their particular group-think view of the world, their intolerant tormenting can be merciless and unrelenting. Some people never grow up though, and many adults with autism can be marginalised by their adult peers. Every barb, joke and isolating experience eroding at the soul of a person with autism until there is nothing left.

This is the most destructive of all. It is death by a thousand insults.

I am writing this series of blogs because I want to help assist in whatever way I can to reduce the ignorance surrounding autism. There is still so much ignorance out there – simple ignorance because the message is still diffusing through our social networks, and obstinate ignorance, by people who use pseudoscientific scare mongering to promote their views, or promote bogus treatments for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the desperation of some of those who live with autism.

No matter which form of ignorance is out there, ignorance is ignorance and it does the same damage. It needs to be stopped.

When I was a little boy, I was odd. It took me a while before I started talking. I had an obsession with vacuum cleaners and watches. I was the misfit, or the loner. I was incessantly bullied in the latter half of primary school and almost all the way through high school. I didn’t want to go out and be with large groups of other kids. My parents made me go to marshall arts training, cub scouts, church groups and school holiday excursions.

I hated those social outings. I had huge anxiety being in these large groups. Even when I wasn’t being mocked or belittled, I still felt anxious because I didn’t naturally fit in with the other kids. The leaders of the group would go out of their way to include me but that had the opposite effect of highlighting how much of a social misfit I was. The anxiety was disabling when I was in middle high school.

Thankfully I was smart, mainly in maths and science. Academic achievement was my only positive, so I took refuge in studying. I graduated in the top percentile in my state, and made it into medical school. I did a whole medical degree, five years in hospitals including several in subspecialty paediatrics, and a fellowship in General Practice, and another eight years of GP experience, before my son was diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum.

Despite years of medical training, It’s only been since my son’s diagnosis that I have been realising just how much of my quirky behaviour and social dysfunction was due to the fact that I’m on the spectrum too. All those years, I thought I was retarded, socially incompetent, a freak. All those years, I was bullied, harassed and made to think I was stupid, just because I didn’t naturally understand the unspoken social codes , but no one explained them to me.

That’s nearly forty years of living with self-doubt, low self-esteem, low self-confidence, and various mental health issues, because I never knew, because no one else knew, because of ignorance and intolerance.

So it stings when I hear people spread mistruths about ASD, and it pains me when the mistruths are spread by people who should know better. It makes me mad when the mistruths come from self-titled ‘experts’.

I don’t want my son going through the same stigma and denigration, or anyone else on the spectrum for that matter. The truth about autism – what it is, what it is caused by, and what strengths autism bestows, need to hold sway so that death by a thousand insults is no longer tolerable in our progressive society.

I will publish further blog posts over the coming days to weeks on what autism is, on why it seems to be increasing, and the latest scientific evidence on what autism may be caused by. I will devote a whole blog (or two) to the misinformation surrounding vaccines and autism. So stay tuned.